Parents are a child's first teachers. They spend the first five years of their lives with parents most of the time. For some families, nannies or extended family members share in the child rearing. My best friend in college had a nanny who lived with her. She was closer to her nanny than her own parents. She could go to the nanny for cooking advice and they would make brownies together.

Whether the love comes from a parent or someone else, each child must know love. This is at the heart of the new book, Overcast by MS Kaye. Overcast is a prequel in the Taken Series. We've already met Alec but now we get a chance to see how he came to be the strong man he is. Let's take a stroll through Alec's life...

Alec Kaden is the son of organized crime. But that’s not what causes him to be cold, and anger to crawl up his spine. He trusts his father’s judgment—his mother’s death in childbirth was his fault. Only one person can calm the monster inside him, but he will not allow her to know him, to see through him and find the darkness lurking behind his detachment. Will he forever remain her invisible protector?

And if you want to see just how Alec turns out... check out book one in the Taken Series: Endless as the Rain....Only $3.99

For Adriane Graham, the real question comes down to this: “Am I Alec Kaden’s guest…Or his prisoner?”

If she’s a guest in the Kaden mansion, then it means Alec has freed himself from his family ties to organized crime. It means he’s telling the truth when he says he’s protecting Adriane from dangerous men and they can shake off the shackles of haunted pasts.

…But…

If Adriane Graham is Alec Kaden’s prisoner, it means his tenderness is simply a ruse to keep her under control; his kindness is just poisoned hypocrisy. It means Alec is a cruel liar, and that somehow, by some desperate way, she’s got to get out of this charming man’s well-guarded house before it’s too late.​Is she Alec’s treasured guest? Or merely a pretty bird, trapped in his gilded cage? The troubling questions pour like fountains…flowing…